


Clouds In My Coffee

by orphan_account



Category: Olympics RPF, Swimming RPF
Genre: Arguing, Break Up, Drabble, Early Mornings, Last Kiss, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-16
Updated: 2014-07-16
Packaged: 2018-02-09 02:23:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1965360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes things just don’t work out. Or, how Ryan ends his and Michael’s relationship during the London Games.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Clouds In My Coffee

* * *

They talk over coffee in the dining hall at three in the morning. They both have races to swim in the hours to come but the conversation is long overdue and it can't be avoided anymore. So here they sit, face to face across a small table near the entrance to the kitchen. Ryan speaks first. He says, “It's actually kind of funny when you think about it. It's very easy to use someone when you both pretend not to know what's really going on.”

“And what's going on?” Michael asks, pauses to stir a creamer packet into his cup. “What's happening to us?”

“Nothing's happening to us, Mike,” Ryan assures him. “There isn't an _'us'_ anymore. There used to be, when we were younger and maybe a little more naive than we are now, but that ship has sailed.”

Michael's lips fall into a deep frown. “Since when did you become the smart one?” he hisses, words slithering through the gaps in his teeth. “Since when did your half-retarded ass start solving the mysteries of the universe?”

“Talking slow doesn't mean you're stupid,” Ryan intones sagely. He takes a sip from his coffee cup and continues. “And I don't have to solve the mysteries of the universe to understand you, Mike. To everyone else you're this big ball of secrets, but not to me. To me, you're plate glass. I can see right through you and unlike you, I don't have to throw my intelligence in people's faces to feel good about myself.”

“No, you don't,” Michael sighs frustratedly. “You just wear your outrageous shoes and your ghetto ass grillz and act like a complete tool.”

“I'd rather be a tool than a puppet,” Ryan fires back.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Michael growls.

“A tool has a purpose, Mike. A tool's life has meaning. A puppet is nothing more than cloth over it's master's hand. A puppet has no life of it's own.” Ryan explains. “It only has what life the puppet master gives it. The puppet talks when it's master gives it a voice and we all know that Bob has been giving you your voice since you were eleven years old.”

“You're wrong,” Michael seethes. “That's not true.”

“It doesn't matter if you think it's true or not,” Ryan says sadly. “If there is only one truth you find in this conversation than let it be this: whatever we had, however glorious and shining and new it was, it's over now and we need to move on.”

“What if I don't wanna move on?” Michael asks.

“That's your choice to make,” Ryan answers, then adds, “but that doesn't mean it will keep me from leaving you. I'm not nineteen anymore, Mike; I'm twenty-eight. It's about time I take the blinders off my eyes and be an adult. I suggest you do the same.”

“But what if this is it?” Michael's words waver as he starts getting choked up. “What if this is our chance at the real thing? Actual, one hundred percent true love?”

“It's not,” Ryan says apologetically. He stands up from the table, comes around to Michael's side and takes the younger man's lips in what can only be described as the world's shortest and saddest goodbye kiss. “I'm sorry, Mike, but it's just not.”

Ryan walks out of the dining hall and never looks back.

For the first time in what seems like forever, Michael cries.


End file.
